Meu primeiro post em ingles

Aqui no japao tenho que fazer muitos trabalhos em ingles. Todos sobre relacao entre as culturas: a Natalia me deu uma otima ideia. ela ofereceu ajuda no meu ingles e eu pensei: poruqe nao oferecer meus textos sobre cultura para uns retardados que souberem ler ingles e quiserem aprender um pouco mais sobre o japao? quem sabe nao aparece um perdido para ler isso?

Sociolinguistics

Creating mutual reliable relationships

In the sociolinguistics classes we are talking about politeness and the differences between cultures. Is interesting to have people from different countries in the same class because we can go beyond the dichotomy between americans and japaneses.

In the last class we start discussing about the differences of a psychological and the material face. In Japan, like in Brazil, we have one word for each one. 顔 means the material face. (in portuguese: cara) / 面し means psychological face (in portuguese: face). It's an important topic: have control about lose or not the others people face.

Then we begin to think about Japanese’s expressions which only have meaning inside their culture. For example we picked up the expression “osehananinarimasu”. We can notice that this kind of expression has not a perfect translation for any other language/culture. But in Japan is a very important expression because demonstrate great gratitude with politeness.

An expression that called my attention was “onegaishimas”. If we translate exactly it will sound something like “please, look after me”. Two days after study this I was in the Japanese Pop Culture class, with professor Yoshida, and all the japaneses, after introduce their selves, say something like: “you can help me”. And just remembered we talking about how is polite in the japanese culture to give importance to the other, to make part of a “mutual reliable relationship”. It reminds me of the japanese animes and mangas. All of them has stories about mutual reliable relationship. There always a main character that only wins in the end with the help of his friends. (like Saint Seya, Yuyu Hakusho, and even Dragon Ball). Why these expressions are important for self-introduction? They create the mutual reliable relationship.

In the western cultures we have the idea of the self-made-man. Even with a culture of proximity and touch, the westerns are used to give the credits to one person and not for the work of the group. Show to another person that he or she is important in your life is something extremely polite in Japan. Is important for japanese that they are relevant for you. I’m here in Japan for exactly 15 days. In these days the first thing the japaneses that I met in the first day asked me was if I remembered their names and I’m doing my best to remember because I notice that I lose their faces when don’t.

Japan cares about hierarchy. So you have to think all the time with who you are talking to to not be impolite. This is one of the difficult things about introduction in Japan. That’s why is not impolite not to introduce a friend in a small meeting, he can talk in a not polite manner with someone that’s have a higher status. The westerns have other relation with hierarchy. Even with a higher person they make jokes to show proximity.

Is polite in japanese culture to let them ask about you instead of saying. I noticed that most of japaneses are “shy” (they say it a lot). So, sometimes they just stare at you waiting for you to talk and I notice that is more polite to say things that they can argue about to start a conversation. But is not polite to start to ask everything because you may take their chance of introduce their selves. In Brazil is more polite to be introduce by someone rather then introduce yourself. Sometimes may sound like you’re only telling things to show that that you are more that you really are, so we have to wait for a short introduction, and only then you can talk. Brasilians are more open to start conversations. It’s not impolite, for example, to call a person of the opposite sex for a date in the first meeting.

The japaneses don’t want to be invisible, so we have to take care with our relationship with them. That’s a reason to study sociolinguistics, be accepted.